


Home Fires Burning

by Decepticonsensual



Series: No More Colombian Nights (The Stanuary Fics) [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 12:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22192579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: To save his brother, Stanley Pines needs to become him - and that means saying goodbye to what remains of Stanley Pines.But first, he has a single phone call to make.Written for Week 1 of Stanuary 2020, for the prompt "Burn".
Relationships: Stan Pines & Caryn Romanoff Pines
Series: No More Colombian Nights (The Stanuary Fics) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623484
Comments: 14
Kudos: 45
Collections: Stanuary





	Home Fires Burning

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: Mentions of fire (naturally); implied emotional control/abuse; very slight self-harm

It should be the Stanmobile, really, for authenticity; but in the end, he can’t bring himself to kill the car that’s been his most faithful, and often only, companion for so many years. After all, the ruse doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s not like there’s going to be a real investigation or anything. He’s pretty sure he shook off his former... _associates_ three states back, and the local cops in this hick town Ford chose don’t seem like they could find their asses with both hands and a map. And no one else has much reason to look too closely at the sudden-but-not-unexpected fiery death of Stanley Pines.

  
  


Stan pauses for a second as that thought hits him full in the chest, then grimaces and shakes it off.

  
  


Besides, the guy at the car rental joint was kind of a jackass, so there’s some small satisfaction in what he’s about to do.

  
  


He finishes splashing the gasoline over the rental car’s seats and shuts the back door. There are no guardrails on these mountain roads, and the drop below him must be a hundred feet or more, sheer right down to the tops of the pines on the valley floor. And this is hardly Stan’s first rodeo. With the brakes already cut, it’s the work of a moment to restart the engine and ease off the parking brake, and then one almighty shove –

  
  


The car rolls off the cliff, the bumper catching the edge and sending it flipping end over end towards the forest below. It lands on its roof, an upended little metal turtle, and Stan holds his breath. A few moments later, there’s a satisfying _phwoom_ as the car becomes engulfed in orange flames, bright against the dark night.

  
  


***

“ _M_ _a_ _?”_

_The voice on the other end of the phone sounded so_ _impossibly young._

_It was as if twenty-odd years had simply fallen away_ _like a curtain in a cheap magic trick. Abracadabra, what you thought was vanished forever has reappeared, just as it should be_ _. She could practically see him, standing in the doorway,_ _all scrapes and bruises and sheepish whisper. Her little free spirit, who used to crawl into her lap when he got hurt, until the day his father dragged him away by the arm and gruffly ordered him to stop being a sissy. Caryn_ _dug her red nails into the skin of her knee, just a little, just to bring herself back._

“Stanley? _What’s wrong?”_

_Stanley’s rare calls were always timed to coincide with boxing matches he knew his father would be watching, giving him and Caryn a brief chance to talk in peace._ _Filbrick Pines didn’t know his wife was still in touch with their second son, and Caryn had no intention of letting him find out._

  
  


_For Stan to call so late, in the middle of the week, to risk his father picking up –_

  
  


_The alarm bells in Caryn’s mind grew louder._

  
  


“ _You’re not in trouble, are you, baby?”_

  
  


“ _I...” Stanley’s breathing hitched, just as Filbrick did, indeed, put his head round the door._

  
  


“ _Who’s calling at this goddamn hour?”  
_  
  


_Caryn covered the receiver and mouthed,_ It’s a client.

  
  


“ _Client? You’re supposed to be closed now!”_

  
  


Important client, _she amended, and said into the phone, “You know, with Mercury in retrograde right now, you need to be careful around dark-haired men...” as she watched him, steadily, like a deer might watch a wolf, until he retreated._

  
  


_When she was certain he was out of earshot, Caryn_ _let her patter trail off._

  
  


“ _Was that_ _D_ _ad?”_ _Stanley asked._

  
  


“ _Yeah.”_

  
  


“ _Do you need to go?”_

  
  


_Th_ _at_ _sudden note of_ _concern_ _twisted something in her chest. “No, I’m here. What did you need to tell me?”_ _Caryn waited. After Stanley had made a couple of strangled false starts, she quietly said, “Sweetie, I won’t be mad. I promise.”_

  
  


_Stanley let out a short, rough laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “I wouldn’t promise so fast.”_

  
  


“ _Have you gone to see your brother? I gave Stanford your address, I was so happy he finally asked –”_

  
  


_An awful sound came down the line, a single, bone-deep sob stifled too late._

  
  


“ _Stanley?”_

  
  


“ _Ma, Ford, he...” Stanley’s voice cracked. “He’s lost. I can’t tell you much ’cause it still doesn’t make sense, even to me,_ _and the details’_ _d_ _make me sound crazy,_ _but_ _the thing is_ _we – we fought and he went away and he got lost, and_ _I –_ _”_

  
  


“ _Lost? What do you mean? What happened, baby?”_

  
  


“ _It’s – it’s all my fault and I can’t, I can’t –”_

  
  


_Hot, suffocating panic started to creep up like a flame inside Caryn’s ribcage. She clutched the receiver until the seams of the plastic dug into her palm, and listened to her son crying three thousand miles away._

  
  


“ _Stanley, where is he?” she begged. “Where’s Stanford?”_

  
  


_Stanley sniffed, and coughed, and brought his voice back under control. What he told her then wasn’t an answer, but there was such a ferocity in the way he said it that it almost could have passed for one._

  
  


“ _I’ll bring him back, Ma, I swear.”_

  
  


“ _Tell me how I can help.”_

  
  


“ _No, it has to be me. I know now what I gotta do.”_

  
  


_The fear sharpened; she was burning from the inside out. S_ _he bit her lip and, before she could let herself wonder how in the hell she’_ _d_ _get around Filbrick to_ _pull it off_ _, blurted out_ _what she’d wanted to say since the moment she’d heard Stanley’s voice: “_ Come home _, we can –”_

  
  


_He made a soft, wounded kind of sound, and then drew in a ragged breath._

  
  


“ _No._ _Ma, I need you to listen._ _There’s something I need to do, to make it right._ _You’re…_ _you’re_ _gonna hear a lot of stuff in the next week or so. Don’t believe any of it. Just remember, whatever anyone tells you – I’m alive, and so is Ford. And I’m gonna bring him home. I love you.”_

  
  


_He hung up without waiting to hear it back._

  
  


_Caryn sat there for a long time; the fire had burned through her, and if she moved, she might crumble to ash._

  
  


_***_

_  
_ Stan lingers on the ridge long enough to watch the flames rippling along the car’s chassis and beginning to lick at the windows. Along with his driver’s license (the real one), he’s packed the car with the odds and ends of Stanley Pines’s existence – photos, papers, a stray pack of Sham Totals he’d found wedged in the trunk of the Stanmobile, his barely-worn former wedding ring. Whatever survives should be proof enough.

  
  


It’s weird, all the bits and pieces that add up to a life while you’re still waiting for that life to start.

  
  


Something about the flames rising from the metal hulk of the car reminds him of the crackling blue fire of the portal, Ford’s frantic eyes as the light swallowed him, and Stan abruptly turns away from the cliff’s edge. It’s a long trudge back down to his brother’s shack, and the work that must be done.

  
  


“Hang in there, Sixer,” he whispers.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> My first Gravity Falls fic! I found myself wondering a lot about whether Caryn knew - at any point - about the switch, or whether she went through the rest of her life thinking that Stanley was dead. I decided to explore one way Stan might have tipped her off, even if he couldn't share the whole story.
> 
> Incidentally, googling "how to stage a car crash" gets you some odd results and also possibly I'm on some kind of watch list now? Which, granted, doesn't feel like an inappropriate way to kick off Stanuary. :)


End file.
